Lauren Rubenstein

In the March 21 issue, the Toronto Star profiles Associate Professor of Dance Hari Krishnan in connection with his latest full-length work, "Holy Cow(s)!" Krishnan discusses the ways in which he often endures "ridiculous if non-malevolent cultural prejudices," such as assumptions that he practices yoga or doesn't eat beef due to his Indian heritage. Krishnan would prefer people to look beyond the stereotypes, beyond what he calls such false binaries as East/West, white/coloured, masculine/feminine, tradition/modernity. Says Krishnan: “I’m brown. I’m a beef-eating Hindu from Singapore and I’m proudly gay. I’m not a tourism poster.” Krishnan, an award-winning dancer/choreographer, is founder of the performing company…

Elizabeth McAlister, chair and professor of religion, is the co-author of an op-ed on CNN titled, "Haiti and the distortion of its Vodou religion." Together with her co-author, Millery Polyné, a Haitian-American professor of African-American and Caribbean history at the Gallatin School–NYU, she provides an introduction to the Vodou religion—the creation of African slaves who were brought to Haiti and converted by Roman Catholic missionaries in the 16th and 17th centuries. While Vodou shares much with Christianity, and its initiates must be Roman Catholic, it departs in its views of the cosmos. Vodou teaches that there is no heaven or hell, and…

Gary Yohe, the Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies, was a guest on WNPR's "Where We Live" recently to discuss climate change and politics. President Donald Trump's newly released budget proposal substantially cuts the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce and other agencies that conduct research and do work on climate change. (Yohe begins speaking around 2 minutes into the program). Since the election, Yohe explains, he and others in the scientific community "have been concerned that part of the attack on science will be the eradication of scientific data scattered around all of the federal…

Associate Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler is an author of a new paper released in HealthAffairs examining the link between health insurance changes after the first Affordable Care Act (ACA) open enrollment period and the efforts of federal, state, and non-profit sponsors to market their products. Fowler and her co-authors found that advertising worked—more ads for the ACA produced a significantly higher rate of insurance enrollment. The study, conducted in collaboration with researchers at the University of Minnesota (including Sarah Gollust ’01), uses advertising and television news data from the Wesleyan Media Project. It is one of the key…

Sara MacSorley, director of the Green Street Teaching and Learning Center, is the author of Super Cool Scientists, a new coloring book celebrating women in science. It features stories and illustrations of 22 women in science and technology careers. Highlighting a wide range of diversity in scientific field, background, race, and more, it aims to show all young people that science can be for them. The idea for Super Cool Scientists came to MacSorley a little over a year ago, and launched with a successful Kickstarter campaign. “I had been looking for a side project that brought more direct science…

The new Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore on Main Street, opening this spring, will feature a café run by grown, a USDA organic certified concept based in Miami, Fla. owned and operated by husband-and-wife team Shannon Allen (a Middletown native) and NBA champion Ray Allen (also a proud University of Connecticut Husky and Olympic gold medalist). grown marries the quality of farm-to-fork cuisine with a level of convenience that makes it possible for busy people on the go to access high-quality foods at affordable prices. The Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore will be located at 413 Main Street, near the intersection of Washington…

The 2016 presidential campaign broke the mold when it comes to patterns of political advertising. But, in a new publication, the Wesleyan Media Project (co-directed by Associate Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler) says, "Not so fast" to those who argue that advertising no longer matters in elections. The article published in The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics (open access through mid-April 2017) shows that the presidential race featured far less advertising than the previous cycle, a huge imbalance in the number of ads across candidates, and one candidate who almost ignored discussions of policy. Yet, at the…

Professor of Religion Peter Gottschalk recently authored an article, "Who are the Sufis and why does ISIS see them as threatening," which appeared on Raw Story and The Conversation. The Sufis, who have been the target of violent attacks in Pakistan in recent years, practice austerity "stemming from a sincere religious devotion that compelled the Sufi into a close, personal relationship with God, modeled on aspects of the Prophet Muhammad's life. This often involved a more inward, contemplative focus than many other forms of Islamic practice." And, according to Gottschalk, though "many Muslims and non-Muslims around the globe celebrate Sufi saints…

The pseudoscientific myths about love and sexuality that abounded in the Victorian era, many of which seem "cruel and oppressive" by today's standards, could also offer women relief from the era's "rigid gender politics," according to Associate Professor of History Jennifer Tucker, who comments on the topic for a Broadly article. For much of the 19th century, the Western world was fascinated with a variety of pseudosciences, or theories that lack a basis in the scientific method. "Definitions of science were malleable and hotly contested in the 19th century," said Tucker, who is also associate professor of science in society, associate professor…

Wesleyan has just partnered with Merit, an online service that helps colleges and universities celebrate and share students’ accomplishments. More than 300 institutions now use Merit, including many of our peers. Each student will have a Merit page, a verified professional profile that outlines their accomplishments at Wesleyan—from research and academic awards to study abroad, volunteer work and co-curricular activities—and can be shared with prospective employers, graduate schools and others. Students don’t need to do anything to maintain their Merit pages, but they’ll have the ability if they wish to enhance them with photos, bios, other activities or work experience.…

Associate Professor of Government Erika Franklin Fowler and Sarah Gollust '01, associate professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, are authors of a new paper published Feb. 16 in the American Journal of Public Health examining local TV news coverage of the Affordable Care Act rollout in 2013 and 2014. Though television news played a key role in providing information about the ACA when Americans were first learning about the details of new insurance options open to them, this is the first analysis of public health-relevant content of this coverage during the ACA's first open enrollment period. In an…

Christina Crosby, professor of English, professor of feminist, gender and sexuality studies, is the author of an essay on injury and grief in a special issue of Guernica magazine on "The Future of the Body." Titled, "My Lost Body," Crosby's essay explores the grief she has experienced since a bicycle accident 13 years ago, just after her 50th birthday, left her paralyzed. The accident was the topic of her memoir, A Body, Undone: Living On After Great Pain (NYU Press, March 2016). She writes, "Because of my transformation, I have worked hard to conceptualize how embodied memory works—like the muscle memory that allows you to ride…

Dance Department’s Krishnan ‘Slaughters’ Stereotypes

McAlister Writes Op-Ed on ‘Demystifying Vodou’

Yohe Talks Climate Change and Politics on ‘Where We Live’

Fowler, Gollust ’01 Author Paper on Insurance Enrollment, Advertising

MacSorley Authors New Coloring Book Celebrating Women in Science

New Wesleyan Bookstore to Offer Food by ‘grown’

Wesleyan Media Project Releases Analysis on 2016 Election

Gottschalk Writes on the Sufis and Why They Threaten ISIS

Tucker Comments on Victorian Pseudoscience, Romance

Wesleyan to Share Student Stories Through Merit

Fowler, Gollust ’01 Author Paper on News Coverage of Obamacare

Crosby Authors Essay on Injury and Grief